In response to ASC growth, hospitals should approach cardiovascular department growth, as well as other services lines, with an outpatient mindset, said AdventHealth's Tim Farley.
Mr. Farley, director of ambulatory services for the cardiovascular institute at Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based AdventHealth, recently joined Becker's cardiology podcast to discuss how the health system is responding to outpatient migration trends, leadership advice and more.
Here is an excerpt from the podcast. Click here to download the full episode.
Question: How are you thinking about department growth?
Tim Farley: I think growth targets have to shift from inpatient to outpatient growth, and really focusing on covered lives instead of revenue. The reality is CMS is approving more codes each year that can be done in an ASC, and in fact have approved over 100 additional codes in 2021.
With their efforts to have site neutral payments, we need to find less expensive platforms to deliver care. The business is shifting again. Whether we like it or not, it's going to be shifting to an outpatient base. So, we need to embrace that change and find new ways to grow and thrive in this new paradigm.
It's widely reported that while hospitals grew by less than 1 percent over the last five years, ASCs grew in that same time period by 7.1 percent nationally, and [growth] is expected to accelerate over the next five years.